Dubspot heads to Seattle’s Decibel Festival from Wednesday, September 25th – Friday, September 27th to join the music celebration with a series of workshops on music production, DJing, mixing, mastering sound design, and modular synthesis.

This year marks the 10 year anniversary of Seattle’s annual Decibel Festival, a five-day event taking place from September 25-29th, 2013. In addition to an amazing lineup of artists from around the globe, Dubspot will be present to deliver three full days of free EDU Sessions in partnership with Deicbel Festival, Ableton and Control Voltage (Portland). These EDU Sessions will cover a variety of topics including music production, DJing, mixing, mastering sound design, modular synthesis and more. Check out the full schedule below along with more information about each workshop. See you in Seattle soon!

Dubspot & Decibel Festival 2013 Schedule:

Wednesday – 9/25/2013

12:00-3:00PM – Dubspot & Control Voltage Present: Synthesizer Studio with James Patrick (Conference Room 1) Dubspot and Control Voltage present an interactive space showcasing classic and contemporary modular and analog synthesizer technology. Take a professionally guided tour through variety of synths and learn more about how they create sound.

2:00-4:00PM – Intro To Native Instruments Maschine, Day 1 – Matt Cellitti (Conference Room 2) Explore Dubspot’s Maschine curriculum in this 2-day mini course with Matt Celliti. Day one will cover some Maschine basics including hardware/software overview pattern recording and overdubbing. Participants are encouraged to bring their own Maschine/Maschine Mikro controller and laptop to follow along with the mini course.

3:00-4:30PM – Sound Design: Analog Gear in with the modern World with Chris Petti (Conference Room 1) Dubspot Curriculum Director Chris Petti explores ways to use traditional analog synths with modern software such as Ableton Live 9, Logic X and more.

4:30-5:30PM – A Day in the Life – TBD artist moderated by Chris Petti (Conference Room 2) Chris Petti moderates with a performing Decibel Festival artist, discussing music production/ DJing workflow and techniques.

5:00-6:00PM – How does CV (Control Voltage) work? with – James Patrick (Conference Room 1) CV (Control Voltage), is the foundation behind many concepts in synthesis. Dubspot instructor and Ableton Certified Trainer James Patrick will demystify this often-misunderstood topic by showing, visually and aurally, just how Control Voltage behaves in the Audio world.

Thursday – 9/26/13

12:00-2:00PM – A Day in the Life – Mastering Engineer – Tarekith – Chris Petti (Conference Room 2) Erik Magrini (Tarekith) of Seattle-based Inner Portal Studio shares his experience as an electronic-music focused Mastering Engineer. He’ll provide an extensive Q&A on his process and on a life paying the bills doing mastering and mixdowns.

2:00-4:00PM – Intro To Native Instruments Maschine, Day 2 – Matt Cellitti (Conference Room 2) Explore Dubspot’s Maschine curriculum in this 2-day mini course with Matt Celliti. Day one will cover some Maschine basics including hardware/software overview pattern recording and overdubbing. Participants are encouraged to bring their own Maschine/Maschine Mikro controller and laptop to follow along with the mini course.

3:00-4:00PM – Beyond EQs and Filters: The DJ Mixer effects processor(Conference Room 1) with Shaun Whitcher (Rane) and James Patrick (Dubspot)
DJ Mixer effects have matured greatly in the past decade, yet their inner workings remain a mystery. In this workshop, we’ll pop the hood under the effects processor in Rane’s Sixty-Four, their new four-channel flagship. Watch Dubspot’s James Patrick and Rane’s Shaun Whitcher showcase DJ mixer effects in the context of live performance and music production.

5:00-6:00PM – Evolution of the DAW – Chris Petti (Conference Room 2) What is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and how do DJs and Producers use them? Dubspot Curriculum Director Chris Petti will present a number of popular DAWs from the music software industry, exploring the philosophies behind their design.

Friday – 9/27/13

12:30-130 – PM Max For Live Visuals Chris Petti (2) Max for Live can help you come up with material you never thought possible. In this workshop, check out a cool way to utilize video clips to generate actual musical data.

1:45-2:30PM – Ableton Live 101 – Matt Cellitti (2) New to this whole thing? Have no fear, this workshop will give you the lay of the land and orient you to the entire world of music creation and performance with computers. Experienced with other music s oftware but thinking of trying out something new? Come have a look to see what kind of things Ableton Live can do, what makes it unique and why it’s a great musical tool to add to your studio.

1:15-2:00PM – Erased Tapes Co-Presents: Artist Workshop with Ólafur Arnalds (A) Join Erased Tapes artist Ólafur Arnalds before his performance at Optical 2 later in the day to learn about how he incorporates acoustic instrumentation into his otherwise electronic music compositions, how he prepares the compositions for live performance and the pros & cons of this process in today’s music landscape. Joining him for the workshop to enhance the demonstration will be violinist [TBA] Hosted By: Dubspot’s Nate Mars & Dave Cross

3:45-430PM Sound Design w/ Vocals – Chris Petti (2) What kind of things can you do with recorded voice? More than you might expect. Come check out a workshop where an entire song is constructed using only vocal recordings from audience members, and learn some amazing sound design techniques that will boost your confidence to work with just about any kind of source material.

4:15-5PM Ghostly International Co-Presents: Performance Setup Demonstrations with Lusine & Dauwd Ghostly artists Dauwd & Lusine will describe their live setups and conduct short performances to demonstrate the tools they’ve come to use at this point in their musical careers. Hosted By: Dubspot’s Nate Mars & Dave Cross